There are some general strategies that you need to know to maximize your Campaign Gameplay experience. You may feel free to ignore these as you wish; expert WZ players can make do without some of these and still win the game. But then again, expert WZ players probably wouldn't be reading a guide.

Trust me, I am typing this out for your benefit... well, and mine, since as I type, I am letting my power tick up on stage Alpha1 .

Vital Strategy #1: Use up every second of your per-stage timer.

This is, as any WZ vet will tell you, the MOST important aspect to your strategy.

All stages (save the very first and last) have a timer on them; so in some stages, you'll find yourself wishing you had more time, and on others, you will think you had "too much". Trust me, there is never too much. Whether just letting your cash tick up, recycling-replacing your forces with new technologies, or setting up defenses at key locations (for base-missions anyway), you can use the extra time on one mission to make your life on further ones easier.

But mostly, the reason you want to prevent stages from ending is so that you can research all the techs you get in a given stage. Falling behind in this can lead to you finding out that you REALLY wish you had access to something in the next stage, butnow find yourself an hour away from having.

Strategy #2: Retreat at X damage.

Units in this game accrue experience as they get killshots (and commanders get it from anything their attached units kill). Tenured units end up being quite a bit better than their non-tenured equivalents; in a Multiplayer game, this is usually not too useful, as most MP competitors know to specifically strike against high-EXP units first; but against the CPU in the campaign, having a force of heroic tanks is AMAZING. Here is a breakdown of what experience gives. Good stuff, no?

One of your options you can give to your units is for them to run if their health gets too low (50%/red, or 75%/yellow, specifically). Here is a better explanation. By having units retreat back to base, having enemies still try to shoot at them while they retreat, and the rest of your force shooting at, and enclosing, said units as they futilly try and do so, not only can you save your own units, you can pull off major cases of surrounding enemy troops. In all but specific cases, Retreat at Medium is what you want your units set at. I'll state times when you may wish to use something else.

Strategy #3: Save Often.

Like many games, saving before doing something is a good way to make sure you don't do something... you regret. This game has a number of twists in it, twists that, even if you read this guide, you will find yourself wishing you had prepared for. I recommend no less than 3 save games; one you take right at the start of a stage, one that you keep saving over as the stage progresses, and one right when you start "milking" a stage's timer after completing the objectives. With these 3 handy, you should never be in a position where you find yourself saying "oh crap, I needed to start handling this X time ago!".

Strategy #4: Play the Tutorial.

There are a number of things my guide won't be covering in great detail; unit controls, for example. Play the tutorial stage to get a feel for the game and it's menus.

With those out of the way... lets get started, shall we?

Edit by Zarel: Renamed and stickied topic.

Last edited by themousemaster on 24 May 2009, 06:19, edited 2 times in total.

As may be expected, the first stage of this game is fairly easy. Wouldn't want to get people to quit playing before they begin . Due to the uncomplicated nature of this mission, This post will be... short, comparative to others.

Not much of a base, eh? Well, let's make one. Build a Command Center, a factory, a power plant, and a Research facility. (if you want a suggestion on the layout of this base, find my screenshot at the end the Alpha-1 section).

When your trucks move to build the oil derrick, you will get a video clip, telling you that raiders are approaching...

But, as it turns out, the halfdozen or so Rambo Wannabies are no match, even for your 4 starting Machinguns-on-wheels.

Once they are dealt with, move your 4 "tanks" east, then north, and fight the other infantry there. Do not, however, move north beyond the overturned truck, or west into the canyon.

When the men are all destroyed, move your 4 tanks back to your base, recycle the ones damaged (yellow or red health), and build yourself up a force of 8 tanks. When ready, return to the overturned truck, and head west.

1 guard tower, 3 units (and maybe any other men you didnt manage to stop from getting in there from the north earlier). 8 tanks is sufficient; you shouldn't even have to worry about casualties. The base will give you an "artifact", that you can research at your research station; in this case, an upgrade to your machinegun damage. Grab it, and build on the oil derrick when it stops burning.

After this base has fallen, move back out of the canyon, destroy the overturned truck and cars, and then head back to your base. Yup, not north, back back.

You will want to recycle and rebuild any tanks that are in red-yellow health again. (don't worry, by the end of this stage, the option to repair vehicles will be available, so this whole repair-rebuild process isn't permanent.)

Once your 8 tanks are battle ready again, head north.

Another small base; 2 guard towers, an oil derrick, a power plant, and a factory. Agains, your 8 tanks shouldn't have any issues. Upon demolition of this base, you will get the artifact for the Flamerthrower turret. Using it or not is your preference; it will work REAL well in upcoming stages against almost anything, but it's short range means it will also get most of the enemy fire centered on it. By the time you find heavier bodies and armor to supply it with, you will also have other weapons you might like more, so.... as I said, use it or don't.

Once the base is flat, build the oil derrick, and stick a factory up here too. be ready; a small scavenger detatchment might attack as you are setting up; as long as your high-health tanks cover the building operation, though, you should be fine.

Again, recycle all damaged units, rebuild them (it's faster to rebuild them at all your factories and have them meet up north, rather than just at the new northern factory), and get ready to move west through the mountains.

4 guard towers, and there will be a number of units here to boot. This is the first time your units face a credible danger of being lost; be sure they are set to retreat at some level of damage (I go with low here, personally. most other stages I used medium, but for now, low is fine).

Once the base goes down, you will get a very useful artifact; the MG guard tower (your first defensive structure). Research it immediately, and pull your tanks back to the factory at the NE of the map. Recycle and rebuild; also, once the MG guard tower finishes researching, place one or 2 to the West of your NE factory. Scavengers may decide they are mad at your attacks and retaliate; nothing they send will get by 2 guard towers though.

And now, for the final fun:

2 guard towers, 2 flamethrower towers, and unit production. Those flame towers are the big threat; any of your units that get ignited may very well not survive.

You'll notice I have a building circled; DO NOT DESTROY IT. The best way to handle this next phase of the attack is to set all your units on "return fire"; that way they will only attack stuf that fires first. IE, enemy units and the 2 guard towers. Once the towers are down, kill the factory and the flame towers by shooting from "maximum range" (another unit option I hope you learned from the tutorial).

Grab the artifact and start researching. Build a repair-turretted tank, and repair all your units damaged in that final attack.

All units to the SE of the map, and get ready to end the stage...

... after letting it run for as long as you want cash. Until near the end of the game, this is just about the only free time you'll have all game. Build as much of a stockpile of money as you have patience for; or, go do some laundry and leave the game running.

While waiting on your money, fully deck out your base with support structures. I suggest like this:

5 power plants, 5 research bays (VERY IMPORTANT), and 2 factories.

You'll also notice 3 MG guard towers in really odd locations, which I've circled. Trust me, having them there is a good idea. Also, putting a MG tower or 2 in the SE of the map (where the southward heading road sort of trails off) is a good idea.

This stage would have more tactics than Alpha1, except... you still only have 2 turret types, so your options are limited.

Immediately after this stage starts, move your attack tanks south of where you left them (which was the SE corner of the previous map), and you will encounter 2 bunkers and a team of scavengers. If you have flamer tanks, now is the best time to let them shine; they will eat up the bunkers MUCH faster than your MG tanks. That said, they may very well get destroyed by 2 bunkers and 8 scavengers focus-firing on them at close range.

If you want, lead the mobile scavs back north, into your prepared MG towers.

Once the 2 bunkers are down, press south to the first enemy base.

If you have flame tanks leading the charge, then just head straight into the base. If not, then have your tanks skirt SE from the small chokepoint, and then have them head West, shooting up the towers and base buildings with your whole force, rather than 1 tank at a time. The base holds upgrades for your flamethrowers.

You should be able to take out most of the structures you see in the picture before your force is depleted (read: retreated) enough to make it unusable. You may run into some units coming from the West, but you should be able to stuff them as well.

On your 2nd pass, get on the hill in the bottom left of that picture, and pick up the Sensor research from it. Then, get your tanks back to the center of the screenshot.

Have your trucks put a couple MG towers in the area at the bottom right of this screenshot as well. Have your MG tanks cover them as they do so; scavengers like to pop out of the houses in that vicinity.

When the Sensor tech is retrieved, and the MG towers are up, (and your tanks are suitably repaired), head West from the previous screenshot, into the next enemy base.

This base is outright nasty. Flamers (including 1 on a fire truck), a number of units, guard towers, bunkers...

The best way to handle all this is with an all-MG force, set to maximum-range firing. Once you've managed to take out the flame tower and the firetruck (and the 2 bunkers) guarding the ramp, this assault gets much easier; yes, they have a lot of units and buildings, but you can use the same "overpowering" strategy you've been using. For the record, by this point, I was still using the same 8 MG tanks that I ended Alpha1 with.

Destroying this base will yield the Twin MG turret. It's more damage than the normal MG turret, but that's about it... nice, but not necessary. Still, make a couple if you want.

From here, head your units back to the 2 MG towers your trucks built on the East edge of the map earlier (and have your trucks put a couple MG towers where the base you jsut destroyed was... they will prove helpful at a later time).

When ready, move south into the last base.

This base "looks" less nasty than the previous one, but they have a LOT of attack units on the approach to it (that you don't see in the SS, since I had to kill them to even be able to survive the suicide trip into the base to get the shot).

It may take 2 or 3 push-retreats, but taking this base is no different than taking the others. Try and leave the circled building to "milk the stage" with, but given what Alpha3 entails, it isn't necessary. A Power Upgrade tech is here.

If you look at the whole stage (after base #3 is done), you'll notice that the road leads off the East edge of the very south of the map. You DO NOT HAVE the necessary technology to build appropriate defensive structures here to hold the pass; however, I recommend putting up 4-5 MG towers guarding the area that road leads to in order to buy yourself time a couple stages from now.

Research any lingering techs, and... proceed to Alpha3 - The Unnecessary. NOTE: Research the power upgrade you got in this stage, but DO NOT apply it to your power plants yet.

This stage would be shamefully easy, if not for the very short time limit. Did you have your 10-pack of units ready to go RIGHT at the start of the stage? I hope so.

Anyway, with little time, we need to get stuff done fast.

Have your truck set up a 3-pack of MG towers just NE of your LZ to cover your tank's rear while they do their thing.

After that, simply march your tanks straight up the middle into the enemy base.

Scavengers will pull interesting stunts like trying to flank you, sandwich you, and approach from behind... but all they use are the 3-wheeler buggies, which arent THAT much of a threat to an 8-tank team, even in the numbers they throw at you.

Grab the tech (DO NOT miss that flame tower guarding it ), and head back to your LZ. If desired, you can instead head to your MG guard towers, and let your repair tank fix up your units before moving them onto the LZ and ending the stage.

The tech is the Heavy-MG. be sure to research it as soon as you pick it up; it's good stuff.

End ALPHA4

Last edited by themousemaster on 25 May 2009, 19:43, edited 1 time in total.

Another away mission. more to do, but a bigger timer, so it's all good.

Send the same 10 units you did last stage.

This stage is the first you will deal with where pathing becomes an issue. For the reason, I recommend having your tanks set to NOT retreat at damage; instead, have your Repair Tank follow the battlegroup around, and pause after each fight to repair your units. Save often, cause if your Repair tank gets blindsided...

Immediately upon landing, head East, and you will notice scavenger towers and bunkers, including a "cannon" tower! How unexpected. Not that they are at all effective. While dealing with them, scav units will approach from the north.

8 tanks should have no trouble dealing with both.

After clearing the initial landing, have your truck set up a couple towers, covering the north path.

However, do *not* send your units that way. the scavengers have it rather heavily defended...

Head West, and you will run into new buildings: "minipod" launchers. semi-dangerous, but low HP. Your MG tanks will make short work of them, and the units with them.

Note that, if you took my advice and set your units to not retreat, you will have to monitor their HP. You might want to slow the game speed down for this; pull back any tank taking heavy damage to your trailing repair tank.

After killing the front 2 bunkers, do NOT press forward into the towers; move even farther west, and find a scav outpost with a factory. Level it. Then come back to the location you killed the bunkers at.

Moving North from here, find and frag the next enemy base. It's not large; 1 research facility, 2 defense buildings, and some units.

The tech here is the Mortar Launcher. This is a BIG find. Research it immediately. After it's done, reserach all it's damage upgrades ASAP. Also, design a new unit to use this weapon, and build 10 of them (units built while on an away mission will sit at the factory-rally point when you get back to your main base). These units will be critical to the next stage, so may as well have them ready and buffed with damage while you have time now.

After this base is done, you get a cutscene... and are told of another base north of the one you just fried. You are about to see why I had you turn off retreat orders.

Get the picture? anyone who tries to retreat now won't make it back to base, since they will try to get there through their main defenses.

That said, you do not need to kill this whole base to end the stage; you just need to get to the factory, and the tech found therein. You should be able to get to it with 1 push, maybe 2. The defenses on the backside (west) of this base are smaller than the front.

The tech found here is the Halftrack. Start researching it; it will be of big use in the near future.

Once you have the tech, feel free to keep pushing the rest of the base if you want (for experience). Or, just head back the way you came to your LZ, but stopping short for 15 minuts so that you can research all that juicy, juicy mortar tech.

A final note: after completing the stage, you may think there is another way to do it; going the long way around the outside of the map, south -> west -> north -> east -> their base. This is a poor tactical decision though; since you have to get to the smaller base to get both techs anyway, going this route will require you to go through their whole big base. If you are planning on destroying their whole big base anyway, may as well go to the smaller one first to get the extra time to research the mortar techs (which will take a while).

End ALPHA5

Last edited by themousemaster on 25 May 2009, 19:44, edited 1 time in total.

Up until this point, you've probably been reading this thread, and figured "meh. The Screenshots aren't necessary, and the game is easy as is; I think mousemaster just likes hearing himself Talk a lot".

I wouldn't blame you, as that sentence is entirely correct.

Alpha 6, however, will knock you on your ASS if you are not ready for it. So... let's get you ready for it, no?

Forwarning:

This stage has a 1 hour timer, but you REALLY REALLY want to beat it as fast as you can (which is no easy task just by itself). At the end, you are going to get a metric ton of new techs to research, and almost all of them will be necessary RIGHT at the start of the next stage (you'll have a little bit of spare time as those MG towers you put up in Alpha3 stalls the enemy, but not much). So if you find yourself at the end of Alpha6, thinking "man, I'm JUST gonna complete this!", then you may wish to restart it.

Let's begin. Start with making sure you have your battle units to "do or die" (no retreating), and load up the same force you ended Alpha5 with.

As soon as the transport arrives, you get a transmission. It basically boils down to "Leave or die". Which wouldn't make for much of a game if you listened to him...

Project HQ tells you to head south to find a force.

However, if you head straight for the flashing Waypoint dot on your minimap, the force will get a headstart on you. We don't want that, so follow the arrows I drew on the minimap to cut off the retreating scavenger forces. Also, set up a couple MG guard towers (you can see my truck in the screenshot doing just that)

Yes, you just ran into a Schoolbus with a Cannon. Luckily, it died fast. A few scav forces may hit your LZ while you are doing this, but a pair of MG towers will stuff them.

After cleaning those up, change ALL OF YOUR COMBAT UNITS to RETURN FIRE MODE, SAVE, and head east (repair first if necessary). You will run into...

As soon as the force sees you climbing the cliff, they will retreat north... but do you see the unit I circled? That unit has no weaponry, but if you hit it with a SINGLE SHOT, then the enemy "massively dangerous" base and land forces in the NE of this map will activate, and turn you into something that best can be described as "used jailbait".

With the "return fire" setting, you SHOULD only hit the enemy scav units. If a few get away, that's fine; but if the New Paradigm (the guys who own that sensor tank) send you a message saying "you will be punished", you are gonna wanna reload. If you are REALLY feeling lucky, then as soon as the NP sensor gets clear, turn your units back to "Fire at Will".

have one tank move just *barely* far enough north from the recent battlefield to "spot" the scavenger base. This will allow you to start airlifting in reinforcements. Load up a transport with 4 trucks (or as many as you have handy), and fill the rest of the transport with the Mortar tanks you built last stage. When it lands, send those 10 units down and east, having them hook up with your MG tanks, load the rest of your mortar tanks into the transport (with any additional trucks if desired), and get ready to have some Fun with Artillery.

As you wait for your reinforcements, have your truck at your LZ set up some MG towers to cover you from (what will eventually become) your flank.

Begin this next phase even before your 2nd wave of mortar+trucks lands; time is of the essence.

Have your landed trucks set up an MG perimiter covering the slope North of where the "I almost shot that Sensor Tank" skirmish took place, and also, have them set up a Sensor tower on the ridge to the west that overlooks the scavenger base. Move your mortar tanks into position where they can shell the scav base. Like so:

Attach the Mortars to the sensor tower, and they will automatically start shelling. The Scavengers will send a bunch of units out to try and stop them, but between your MG towers and your 8 MG tanks, they shouldn't get anywhere near your mortars.

After the mortars kill everything in range of the sensor tower (which includes the scav factory, preventing reinforcements), send in an MG tank on "hold fire" mode to grab the tech that they dropped, and quickly retreat. You can now have access to the Light Cannon, which is QUITE useful for this very stage. Research immediately, place it on a Viper-Halftrack body, and build 10 of them. STAT.

Assuming the New Paradigm isnt mad at you yet, you may wish to save here as well.

While waiting for the new tanks to finish (and transport in), set up another sensor tower NW of the one you jsut used to decimate the scav base. When it finishes, you should spot some NP forces; but as long as you don't get in their firing range (or hit them), they should stay quiet.

Move your mortars just south of the scav base, but don't attach them to the new sensor yet. We want our tanks here to handle the backlash.

While waiting for said tanks to build/fly in, place some MG towers in the valley to prepare. Mack sure they stay out of range of the NP units... like so.

If your forces aren't in this position by the time your new tanks arrive, then you are going to have an issue. But... now here comes the fun part. Send your MG tanks back to your LZ, and have them wait there for the new tanks.

Don't forget to research the cannon damage upgrades after the cannon; also, you can have your repair tank stay with the mortar team, or follow the MG units. Your pick; I tend to have it stay with the mortar team though.

When the new tanks land, you should have an 18-unit force ready to go. Park them where I have in the following picture:

It's time for me to show you what you are actually up against.

Yup. A well defended base with a lot of units. Haven't dealt with that yet, have we?

The white circle in the above picture has a Sensor Tower in it (I just barely didn't spot it to get it into the Screenshot). That is the building we are going to LEAVE STANDING to drag this stage out as long as possible.

Time for the master plan.

1) Attach the Mortar units to the sensor tower.

2) Move your MG units due east, and set them to retreat at heavy damage. They will end up overlooking a valley where scav units are poised to make a surprise strike on you; but from the ledge above them, you should be able to gun down 80-100% of their force before they leave the valley.

3) *As Soon As* the New Paradigm announce hostile intentions via cutscene, move your Cannon units due east of where they are currently sitting, to just outside the range of the NP cannon-tower at the base's corner. Make sure they are set to "not retreat".

The first thing that comes out of their base is most of their lighter tanks, and a couple big ones. Your existing MG towers + mortars, being constantly repaired by trucks (and the trucks being repaired by the repair tank) should hold this batch off.

The Main Battle Group of the New PAradigm Lieks to wait in their base until they are actually under attack; lets oblige, shall we?

Have you trucks put 1 MG and 1 sensor tower just north of your MG-tower battle line; move your mortars over, have them take a pot-shot at the defensive wall, and then quickly move them back behind your main MG-tower line. Don't get greedy; you don't need to actually bring a defensive tower down, just hit it. Your mortars are slower than their tanks.

After they get back behind your MG-tower wall, don't reassign them to a sensor just yet; wait till the enemy tanks are good and in range, then hit them. Then, assign the mortars to the sensor, set your cannon tanks to "hold fire", and move them in behind the commander.

It's hard to see in this screenshot; but aside from my exploding (read: lost) MG-tower, there is also a blown-up heavy-MG enemy tank, another heavy-MG tank about to go boom (that's covered in mortar smoke), a Medium-cannon enemy tank barely visible to the left of the smoke, 1 heavy MG tank approaching, and the command tank that's about to get jumped.

Once your Cannons are in position behind the enemy commander, let him have it. He's got a LOT of hitpoints, but if you surround him before opening fire, he won't exacly be running. And your mortars should help.

Keep an eye on your unit's HP; any cannon that falls to red, manually move it south behind your tower line for repairs (or back west if your repair buggy is there), and have the other cannons cover him by getting between him and the guys firing at him, while your other cannons return fire at the assaulting target. If done right, you can get away from this with 0 casualties, and 1 dead enemy commander. If this is proving hard, try reducing the game speed.

With the commander (and a large # of his tanks) down, it's time to breach their defenses.